Ruth King
Contributing Writer
Profitability Master & CEO

Did you “Try Marketing” this year?  If you tried marketing you probably wasted your money.  Here is what happens:

You saw a television or radio ad for a competitor or received one of his postcards by mistake.  You assume that everyone hears or sees the messages and decide that “since my competitor is doing marketing I have to do it too.”

So, you come up with what you think is a better ad or message and send a postcard, place an ad in a newspaper, or buy radio or television advertising. You do it once. When you don’t get great results, you decide that “it didn’t work” and that competitor is wasting his money.

Or, since you’ve heard that social media is the best advertising method, you put together a Facebook Fan Page, a LinkedIn or Twitter profile, and don’t invest the time in these social media tools, and as a result, “marketing doesn’t work.”

You’re right – marketing doesn’t work if you do it once, you don’t track results, or you do it without planning. You have wasted your money and time. Marketing that produces results takes time, planning, a monetary investment, and tracking.

You now know that sending one message is a waste of money.  Putting up a Facebook fan page and not keeping it fresh is a waste of money

So, before you waste your marketing dollars in 2017, put together a reasonable marketing plan, execute it and track the results.

Here are the three suggestions for your 2017 marketing plan:

1. Determine the number of dollars you can invest in marketing.  The rule of thumb is 3{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} to 6{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f} of service and replacement revenues.  Try to use as much manufacturer co-op as possible to reduce these investment dollars.  If you are trying to rapidly increase your service base, you might invest more than the 6{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f}.  Just be sure that you target your marketing to specific geographic areas.

2. Review what marketing activities you invested in this year.  What were the results?  Did you diligently track results (when a new potential client calls, ask “By the way, how did you hear about us?”  and record the results).  This is the only way to know what worked and what didn’t work. Then do the same type of marketing that worked in 2016 in 2017.

3. Choose one or two marketing methods and stick to those methods only. This way you can be most effective with your marketing dollars.  Be consistent with your message.  The recipient should recognize the message format after one or two messages.  Consistency might be a tag line, message layout, message color (in the case of postcards), or theme.

A word of caution.  Once you have decided on the marketing methods, don’t be tempted during the year when a sales person walks in with “the latest and the best” marketing method that you just have to spend money on.  If you think it is a good idea, put it on your potential list for 2018.